Today I learned that Iris Murdoch apparently loved a painting by Titian depicting the flaying of Marsyus--who challenged Apollo to a flute-playing contest and had the great misfortune of winning--, which she felt was expessive of the human condition. It would certainly seem to be a bleak one then.
We also were introduced to this notion of Grace, meaning in a theological sense that God is present in the world, and one becomes aware of it. If one denies it(like Pentheus, aptly named "grief"), then typically very bad things will happen to you and everyone else. Like omophagia, doing sparagmos one better(or worse) by involving the eating of live flesh. We also have yet another way to consider tragedy; namely when the punishment is grossly disproportionate to the crime.

I shall also try and see if I can come up with a visual representation of the story that most struck me from Ovid's Metamorpheses, that of Cephalus, Procris and Aurora.